Vivian Howard grew up in Lenoir County, North Carolina. She has authored two award-winning cookbooks, created and starred in TV shows Somewhere South and A Chef’s Life, and owns four restaurants—including her latest, Lenoir, in Charleston.

I am in a cage with my 12-year-old daughter, lowering, ever so slowly, into a tank full of sharks at the Georgia Aquarium. Ice-cold water meets my ankles and begins streaming inside my wetsuit boots.

The smell of rib-eye steaks sizzling on an indoor grill brings Rob McDaniel right back to his grandmother’s house in Oneonta, Alabama. His vivid memories of her cooking inspired him to become a chef, and now his downtown Birmingham restaurant, named Helen in her honor, is garnering national accolades for its Southern-inspired cuisine.

Thanks to its next-to-nonexistent level of light pollution, this remote park at the entrance of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is one of the best places in the country to stargaze.

Ocean Springs is a small town of abundant beauty—the natural kind found in the twisting branches of live oaks and the stunning sunsets at Front Beach, but also the type meticulously crafted on a pottery wheel or in a glass-blowing studio.

For decades, Florida’s A1A has been synonymous with beach vacations, a two-lane ticket to fun in the sun. Long stretches hug the Atlantic coast, offering stunning views of the ocean and the sandy shore.

While Louisville may shine especially bright on the first Saturday of May, there’s much more to Louisville than big hats and fast horses.

Called the “King of Shrubs,” the rhododendron loves high altitudes; it’s the national flower of Nepal and a familiar sight in the Southern Appalachians, where blossoms of white, pink, red, and purple paint the tallest slopes in the eastern United States.

Nestled at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, Charlottesville, Virginia, is perhaps best known as the home of two former presidents (Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe) and the University of Virginia. But beyond its presidential pedigree and handsome neoclassical campus, the city is an ideal location for a few days away.

The terrace-level restaurant in Midtown’s swank Epicurean Hotel serves creative dishes like hay-smoked rack of lamb and king trumpet oyster mushrooms with cherry confit.

Jazz musician Robin Barnes shares her ideal 24 hours in her hometown.